Caverna - first impression

I played one round of 4 player Caverna last night, and I think I see why a lot of people prefer Agricola, but I'll try to break it down.

Variation and Randomness

There's definitely less variation/randomness.. kind of.  I mean, Agricola has variation, but really if we used a 1 to 5 scale to see how you differentiated your final play decisions it'd look something like
1 - crops
5 - animals
1 - occupations
3 - improvements
4 - family growth
Really the cards are just telling you how to play.. which is fine i guess.  Or if you draft (which you should) you get a little bit of say in what branches you'll go in.

In Caverna, it's really starting order and people knowing that they should challenge for certain things. You could play each game the same.. but why would you? I mean especially if you lost the last time.. you're probably going to want to try something else.

Investment

Investment is MUCH easier in Caverna since the point system is very straightforward and the combos are much shorter.  It changes the risk ratio but then you don't have players who don't know the value and usage of the card beehive for example.

Also, it's much more difficult to support a large population of dwarves because there are no big automated food engines.

Play Order and Conflict

Part of the weirdness of Caverna compared to Agricola.. is the order in which things happen.  The first conflict is crops vs expansion vs (ore mine/adventuring) in contrast to Agricola's sheeps vs occupation vs wood (maybe crops if you've got stuff to make it work or you're playing the expansion).

The one thing that I really like are the gems though.  It's a very cool system that values flexibility and incentivizes taking starting player which livens play up.

Day One Assessment

Just a couple thoughts.  Keep in mind this is a view from a single game and we only played with the primary 12 furnishings so I'm not sure what the other ones can do.

• It's weird not being able to get cows without adventuring
• I don't understand the need for the stone/ore stage card
• Misreading the ruby mine to be like the ore mine was bad
• Gems are really fun
• Dogs are awesome
• Blocking doesn't hurt you as bad as it could in Agricola.. (those ridiculous traveling players combos)
• Feels much more like Agricola: Farmers of the Moor in that you can win in a lot of ways